The Great Buddha+

Taiwanese director Hsin-yao Huang's feature debut "The Great Buddha+" starts as a comedy tale of middle-aged misfit slackers, though by the end highlights the loneliness of those involved, perhaps brought about by a modern age of overactive media consumption.

Pickle (Cres Chuang) is an incompetent night watchman for Kevin Huang (Leon Dai), the local successful man commissioned to make a Buddha statue for a temple. With little to do each night, his friend Belly Bottom (Bamboo Chen) joins, bringing gifts of pornography, cold food and company. A bumbling duo of idiocy and perversity, Belly Bottom asks Pickle about Kevin's dashcam footage - looking for something to watch as the hours go by.

The pair then sit night after night watching hours of road moving towards them, though every now and then there are interesting recordings of the sounds going on in the back seat when Kevin has a lady with him. Eager for more "action," the pair watch more and more, soon uncovering some dark secrets which could have drastic implications for Kevin, as well as Pickle.

"The Great Buddha+" is a film full of self-aware in-jokes. The "+" in the title refers to the fact this is a building on an original short film from 2014, with a narrator popping-up here and there with an almost DVD commentary to add explanations and film notes, as well as cover plot holes. Shot in black and white - which is pleasing on the eye (the dashcam footage the only part of the film in colour) - the characters themselves even claim that reference to colours is needless in a black and white film. Belly Bottom also comments as to how TV is now easy to make, simply collecting hours of dashcam footage together. Something the film thankfully does not become.

Less post-modern comedy comes from the characters themselves, each with quirks and a buffoonish quality of loveable rogues, making-up a collection of life's downtrodden. Pickle is a man seemingly without dignity and courage, easily led; while Belly Bottom is the weird and wonderful, obsessed with claw machines. Their only other friends are Peanut (Na-dou Lin) who works in the local 7-Eleven (the source of further amusement) and the non-speaking, homeless Sugar Apple (Shao-huai Chang).

Their lives are contrasted by Kevin and his rich and powerful friends, frolicking in swimming pools with young women, with our heroes the clear opposite end of the spectrum. They spend their nights watching videos to learn more about the life of Pickle's boss, however, the sadness in the film's conclusion is not so much in death, but in learning that they knew little about those closest to them. Despite the hours spent together, Pickle knows little about Belly Bottom and the life he leads outside of joining him in his cabin at night. The group of misfits perhaps don't even fit alongside each other.

Cres Chuang stated that novice director Huang didn't give too much direction to the actors - whether out of naivety or craft - so little was really known as to who the characters really are. And in an age when learning as much as possible about others through media dominates, Buddha looms over all holding the secret.